Expresso
by halfwaymissingyou
Summary: College graduate Jacob Black, receives his first job interning at a publicist. He makes a pact with a familiar young woman, and maybe quite possibly falls for her, well that is into she disappears into thin air leaving nothing but a note to help explain what happened and where she might be. JacobxBella EdwardxBella


_Expresso_

* * *

_._

There was a flash of movement, a moment of breath and then, he was there. Standing outside the building, umbrella in cupped hands as rumbling clouds of grey, and ever darker grey tumbled over one another and made threatening noises. How long had it been since he'd seen the sun? About a week now, maybe more. A constant downpour kept a steady hold on their area, a shield that refused to even let the slightest slit of light slip between its crevices.

It was funny how the weather seemed to keep up with his mood, never faltering, never letting a ray in, just as he never let another smile pass across pale lips. Sounds reached dulled ears, but he shook his head, unable to hear them, to sense what made them and how.

The winter's freeze had melted into spring's slush, and he sauntered through it, making tracks, footprints-that's what they were, he needed to remind himself now, that were unfamiliar to him. Stepping up onto the porch, his hand reaches up, furls into a fist and knocks, once, twice. The sound bounces off the wooden door, and he can hear its echo inside the halls. But no one comes. There's no scatter as the papers blow from her desk due to rapid movement, as she walks in those heels too high and long for her, that hurt her feet and she finds completely unreasonable if she's going to sit behind her desk for the remainder of the day. There's no noise, no _life. _

He was stupid to come, to believe she'd be waiting for him with open arms and warmth. A rare smile, the one she reserved for him, her personal sun as she 'd nicknamed him, spreading rapidly across her face, pulling back her lips and showing adorably crooked teeth.

And reasoning dawns on him, plucking hope like a flower, _she loves me, she loves me not, _but he stays there for a moment longer, staring at door, memorizing the familiar shape of the knob, and it's color. How many times had he walked through it last summer? Grasping that knob with a free finger, the lip of a hot mug clenched between his teeth? Double espresso shots, and other breakfast fixes huddled in paper bags beneath his arms.

"Thank you Jacob," she'd snort, not looking up from the paper, one hand still mingling on the keys, as she reached up and stole a bag, and the mug, "Now, how much do I owe you?"

"Oh the usual." And he leaned toward her, offering a tanned cheek, with which she'd shake her head, snort, then quickly press her lips. "One day that won't work," she'd retort over his retreating frame, as he'd continued his route delivering the rest of the bags to the other journalists.

.

"Where are you?" he wonders aloud, back in the present. His hand presses up against the knob, twisting it back and forth, but it refuses, either jammed or locked from the inside. But what would it matter anyway, if he got inside? There was nothing there but memories of a summer long since forgotten by everyone except him who clung to it like a life preserver, hoping to keep his head afloat long enough to remember. So much had happened in such a short period, modeling him as if he were clay, pulling at him, shaping him, and changing him. For the better? Well right then, he believed so.

Even as he stepped from the porch, and repositioned the umbrella above his head. The clouds had released, coming down in a steady drizzle that felt as if it would turn into something heavier much later on. He walks the sidewalk, splashing his boots in every deep puddle, like the child he knows he is, and has been called so. The water catches on his jeans soaking through to his calves, but he's not in the mood to notice, let alone care. He's almost to the road, leaning out to hail a cab, when he catches sight of it, and lowers his hand, just as a full yellow taxi races by smelling of smoke and exhaust, drenching him in an onslaught of street rain.

But there's no time for that, because his attention's on the mailbox at the end of the sidewalk, the one that belong to the evicted building, before him. His building. Her building. Where they met, a summer ago. But it's not the mailbox that's out of place; it's the little red tag that sticks up signaling new mail that's been left untouched. And he knows he shouldn't get his hopes up, that perhaps the owner of the building forgot to pull the tab down the last day he grabbed his mail, or maybe its just some unpaid bills or something.

But there's that little thing inside him, that last little petal going, _Come on, Jacob, open the mailbox. _Pressing his fingers onto the little handle, he pulls back releasing the small door. Looking in, his heart plummets into his stomach, because there's nothing there at all, not even a single newspaper, or postcard.

But then, as his eyes adjust he notices it, shoved way back in the corner, so that the mailman wouldn't grab my mistake at first hurried glance, thinking it was a letter waiting to be sent. It's crumpled, and pretty far back, but Jacob reaches, and reaches, until he feels like he can't even feels his fingers, and then he's got it grasped in his fingers.

Nothing more than a balled up piece of a napkin. He sighs, and shakes his head, feeling the need to slap himself for being so stupid, as he unfurls the piece. But then there are the words. Small, familiar, written in quick black scrawl across an unfamiliar logo of a steaming coffee cup. And he's pulling the napkin close wondering if he can catch her scent, not as pungent as most girls, as she refuses to where perfume, but that had always been something he liked about her. How real she could be. How, when he touched her, she didn't seem fragile, or like she would disappear into thin air, like a princess for a fairytale. That was how the other girls seemed, fake and breakable. For show, and not to touch.

She didn't sign it. There was no name at all. Just the scrawl and then nothing, as if she wrote it then abruptly left it, with who or what delivered it here.

But it had to be her. It just had to be.

_Jacob-_

_Don't think I forgot about you. The promise._

_We're going to make it big._

_._

* * *

_First time writing something like this. Thoughts? _


End file.
